


It's (not) a date

by ForxGood



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Bi!Panic Erin Gilbert, F/F, Poor Erin can't seem to catch a break, Suave and smooth as fuck Holtzmann
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-12 21:45:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9091960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ForxGood/pseuds/ForxGood
Summary: In phase 'god knows how many by now' of Holtzmann's back-to-the-drawing-board plan, she manages to get Erin alone to grab dinner together. But as much as the auburn-haired physicist keeps insisting that this is not, in fact, a date, Holtzmann isn't so easily deterred.Or: the one where Erin has a bi!panic in the middle of a pizzeria and Holtzmann is a smug little shit.





	1. It's not a date

**Author's Note:**

> Are we sick of these RP threads turned fics yet? Yes? No? Let me know. Anyway, thanks to Tumblr user ghostsandelectricity for being the voice of Holtzmann in this one. As usual, I'm scientificxmethod on Tumblr and forxgood on Twitter, come talk to me!

It was a relatively calm morning for the Ghostbusters. Kevin was manning the phones – or trying to, at least – while Abby kept an eye on him, Patty was reading up on the latest novel she’d gotten herself, Erin was hard at work, and Holtzmann…

"If I tell the Mayor that we absolutely need access to raw plutonium, do you think I would get it?"

 “We do  _not_  need access to raw plutonium, so don’t even think about it.” Erin countered, not even looking up from her stack of paperwork as she spoke.

Holtz slunk over, draping herself over half of Erin’s desk, chin propped up in both hands. “Half a ton of hydrogen gas, then?”

“Also no.” Erin said, rolling her eyes. “And to answer what will undoubtedly be your next set of questions: No, no, and also no.”

“Sooooo, you also don’t want to go get something to eat? Because that would have been my third question and those were three no’s.” She grinned, waggling her brows at Erin.

Erin groaned, glaring at the blonde from over her paperwork. “Very funny, Holtzmann. Hilarious. But I have no time for your jokes today;  _someone_  has to finish all this paperwork, or Jennifer Lynch will have our heads.”

With an air of over-exaggerated drama, Holtz sighed. “Then I’ll have to find something else to keep me busy with. On an empty stomach.”

“I think you’ll live.” Erin shrugged, knowing full well by now that trying to continue her paperwork would be an impossible task. Once Holtzmann had put her mind to something, she would find a way to get it, and Erin had long since learned she was incapable of saying no to the engineer.

Still, she wanted to give it one last shot, at least hoping to finish the page she was working on.

“Yes, but will everybody else?” Holtzmann grinned, having grabbed a pen from the holder and inspecting it with dangerous intensity. Generally, whatever the focus of Holtzmann’s attention was in trouble.

Though in truth, it wasn’t quite clear where Holtz’s attention lay in that moment; Pen or Erin.

Watching the way the blonde was staring at the pen, Erin closed the folder she had been working on with a sigh. Last time she had left Holtz bored for too long she had somehow managed to turn Erin’s entire desk into a functioning replica of a particle accelerator using solely office supplies. Erin still wasn’t sure how she managed that - and actually found it quite impressive - but she wasn’t too keen on letting that happen again. 

“Good point. Dinner it is.”

Without missing a beat, Holtz jumped to her feet with a little bounce. Her blindingly bright smile was an indicator of just how pleased she was with her latest victory over Erin’s stubborn denial.

She stretched her arms over her head, making her knuckles and back crack. “Date, come on, let’s go.” she winked at Erin over her shoulder.

“It’s not a date!” Erin squeaked out, her face slowly turning a bright shade of scarlet at the mere implication.

“Aaaah, yeah. Sure.”, Holtzmann didn’t sound convinced in the slightest. “At least that way I won’t have to pay.” she looped her arm through Erin’s and grinned at her, her head tilted enough to look over the top over her glasses.

The whole thing formed the picture of an amused leer.

“Really, it’s not!” But despite Erin’s crimson red face, she seemed to know arguing with Holtz was of very little use. And really, Erin did  _not_  want to think about the prospect of dating Holtzmann right now. That brought forth all sorts of confusing thoughts and feelings that Erin was neither willing nor wanting to deal with. Because as much as she liked Holtzmann, the two were friends. Good friends. And Erin wasn’t gay. Or bisexual, for that matter.

(Even though she was getting more and more certain of the fact that maybe she needed to do some soul-searching on that because she wasn’t sure her feelings for the blonde were entirely strictly platonic anymore.)

Halfway through dragging Erin along to the door, Holtz stopped and frowned. “Not Chinese, though.”

“I was thinking Italian.” Erin replied as she followed Holtz out the door. “If that’s okay with you?”

“Pizza!” Holtz hummed, somehow managing to make it sound indecent, causing Erin’s face to flush even more.

“I’m craving pasta, actually, but good places have both.” Erin smiled, trying to ignore how Holtzmann had somehow managed to make the word ‘pizza’ sound positively filthy. It shouldn’t even have surprised her one bit; Holtz’s every other sentence was a flirtatious remark, of course she could make pizza seem like something dirty.

After a moment of silent contemplation (and mental revelling the sheer beauty that is pizza), Holtzmann shrugged. “Pasta on Pizza?” She shivered at her own suggestion. “No, never mind, terrible idea.”

Without even thinking, she reached out to pull open the door, caught it with a heavily booted foot and kicked it open, leading Erin through. “I was contemplating building a proper pizza oven and then I realised that I wouldn’t know how to make pizza in the first place.”

A Erin listened to the blonde ramble about her love for pizza, she was glad the engineer had let go of the ‘date’ thing. Because this wasn’t a date. This was just two friends and co-workers getting food. People needed to eat, after all. But she was more than welcome for the change of topic, and could certainly see Holtz building her own pizza oven.

“My cooking skills end at breakfast foods.” She confessed with a shrug. “So I can’t really help you with that either.

Suddenly pizza was forgotten and Holtz’s eyes were back on Erin. Even behind her tinted glasses the glint was visible and her grin had turned back into that particular mix of teasing and flirtation that Erin should be more than familiar with by that point. 

“Are you offering to make me breakfast? Why, Dr. Gilbert, here I thought I’d have to be the one to propose a night of debauchery.”

The words brought Erin’s blush back, and with a vengeance. Nearly tripping over her own feet, she sputtered for a second, too embarrassed to speak. The fact that her brain had decided to provide her with images of Holtzmann with obvious bedhead in her kitchen while wearing one of her old Columbia sweaters also didn’t help matters.

 “I- That- You  _know_  that’s not what I meant!” She squeaked, willing the very vivid image out of her head (no matter how nice she may have found it). “And how do you even get from breakfast to debauchery in the first place?!”

Grinning, Holtz winked at Erin, noticing her obvious fluster. There was something fun and endearing about Erin’s reactions whenever Holtz flirted with her. She had started it because Erin was pretty and a bit on the prim-and-proper side and making people uncomfortable was a good way to figure them out. 

Holtz continued it because Erin is pretty and brilliant and it gives her a weird sense of satisfaction when she can get a reaction out of her.

“Are you saying you would not stay for breakfast?” She asked, feigning hurt at the physicist.

 “I- Of course I’d stay for breakfast!” Realizing how those words could be interpreted, she glared at Holtz. “But I won’t need to because there will be no debauchery. None. At all. Ever. Because I like men. Yes.”

(At this point, Erin wasn’t sure who she was trying to convince; Holtzmann or herself. In all honesty, it was a pretty close call. Part of her  _really_  hated how Holtzmann made her feel, making her doubt everything she thought she knew about herself. Part of her loved the effect the engineer had on her, in a way, but for the most part, Erin was having a lot of feelings she wasn’t entirely sure what to do with.)

Nevertheless, it was the first time Erin had shut down Holtz this clearly, and strangely it hit home for the engineer. She stuffed her hands into the pockets of her lose-fitting pants, stained with different spots of paint and oil and grime. 

“No breakfast and no debauchery, so back to pizza.” She tried a grin that was just slightly off. A bit too wide with a bit too much teeth, like she knew what expression she wanted to make, but wasn’t completely aware of how to do it.

Erin felt strangely guilty as she looked back over at Holtz, who seemed to be a lot less cheerful than before. Realistically, she knew she had nothing to really be guilty for. After all, she had only said what she believed to be true (or at least, what she was still desperately trying to convince herself was true).

But something about the way Holtz smiled - or didn’t smile - made Erin feel positively awful about saying it, especially considering the doubts she’d been having.

Gently nudging Holtz’s shoulder as they walked, Erin flashed a weak smile at her. “I could still make you breakfast?” She tried hesitantly. “I know you don’t eat proper meals otherwise…”

Holtz made a show of swaying from the shove and her smile became a little more genuine again. “What  do you mean? Fruit Loops and Red Bull is totally a proper meal.” She joked.

She kicked at a stone on the sidewalk and immediately swerved to avoid an elderly gentleman who glared in her direction without actually looking at her. Holtz rolled her eyes behind her glasses.

Erin’s own smile grew significantly brighter at the engineer’s antics, glad she had been able to cheer Holtz up a bit. She didn’t like seeing the engineer sad. Not that that was a weird thing; she didn’t like seeing her friends sad in general. But a treacherous voice in her mind told her it was different in Holtzmann’s case (a voice which Erin quickly silenced, because she was  _not_  having this discussion on her way to a pizza place). 

“Of course it is, Holtz.” She grinned. “Honestly, your diet is  _terrifyingly_  terrible, I don’t understand how you keep that figure of yours.”

“Running around chasing ghosts and kegel exercises. Makes for amazing pelvic floor muscles, too.” She smirked and turned the corner towards the nearest pizza place.

She danced a little jig and brought herself around and in front of Erin, walking backwards. “So, I get one chance at the breakfast equivalent of a bootie call?”

As badly as Erin wanted to let that last part go, her brain had other ideas, filling her mind with images that she did  _not_  want to consider the implications of. Denial was a very powerful thing, and Erin wielded it like a weapon. She’d had experience in make-believing things weren’t as bad as they seemed, but even the strongest defenses could crumble. And it seemed like Holtzmann was crashing in like a category 3 hurricane,  _demanding_  to be noticed.

“As long as you understand it’s not an actual bootie-call.” She grumbled. “Or a date. Which this also isn’t. It’s just friends having a meal together. Nothing more.”

With another skip and a jig, Holtz fell back into step beside Erin, drew one hand back and gave her a quick slap on the rear, making Eirn yelp in surprise. “No bootie-call, got it.” And before Erin could say anything else, Holtz took one long leap towards the door of the pizzeria they had just reached. 

She pulled the door open with an exaggerated bow, rocking back onto her heels until she was rather precariously balanced there, almost folded in half. Glancing up at Erin over her glasses, she grinned: “M’Lady, after you.”

Erin shot Holtz a deadly glare as she walked part Holtzmann into the pizzeria. What part of ‘I do  _not_  want to consider the implications of my feelings about Jillian Holtzmann at a pizzeria’ did the blonde not seem to comprehend?

(Granted, Erin hadn’t exactly told her about this plan of hers so Holtzmann wasn’t really to blame, but still. She’d  _hoped_  the engineer would be a little more considerate nonetheless)

“That would have been  _so_  much more chivalrous without the ass-slap.” She said, before sitting down in one of the smaller booths and waiting for Holtz to join her.

“Also so much more boring.” Holtz replied with a grin and slid into the chair opposite Erin. Even with the slightly rickety wooden chair she managed a slouch, one elbow draping over the back. 

Honestly, Erin considered it kind of unfair how Holtz could still have such an air of confidence and swagger about her, even when sitting in a rickety chair at a small Italian restaurant. In a way, she looked terrible charming, but Erin put that down to a certain envy towards the other woman. How often hadn’t she wished for more confidence, after all?

No, there was nothing more to it than that.

She proceeded to ignore the way Holtzmann was eyeing her with an almost absent smile on her face. 

The engineer had just drawn a breath to say something when the server materialised beside them. A young woman with a mess of auburn curls piled on her head. And just because the girl was cute and Holtz could, she swivelled her head around and leaned forward, bracing herself on the table.

With one long forefinger, she pulled her glasses down her nose and drawled: “Hello there.”

Erin  _definitely_  didn’t bristle at the sight of Holtzmann clearly flirting with their waitress. Holtz could do whatever - and whomever - she wanted.

Erin wasn’t interested anyway.

So she wasn’t jealous. She  _definitely_  wasn’t jealous.

“Hi. Glass of white wine, please. And you,  _Jillian_?” And if Erin’s voice sounded colder and more annoyed than usual that was just because she’d had a long day. It was nothing to do with Holtzmann and her flirting. At all. Nor was the use of Holtz’s first name of any relevance at all. Nope. Definitely not.

(Oh god, she was going to have to get through this debacle over dinner anyway, wasn’t she?  _Dammit, Holtzmann_ )

The engineer’s wiggling eyebrows stopped somewhere half up her forehead at the sharpness and the mention of her first name. Holtz turned back to Erin with an expression that flowed from questioning to knowing to shit-eating grin. 

“Nothing I can mention in polite company, but I’ll take a beer for now.”

Her eyes, impossibly bright even behind her tinted glasses, never left Erin and she made a point of letting the tip of her tongue linger on her upper lip for a little too long than absolutely necessary to pronounce the word  _polite_.

Erin felt herself squirm in her seat, not liking the current expression on Holtzmann’s face one bit. It was the expression she always wore when she knew something embarrassing about someone, and was about to mock them mercilessly for it.

Or in this case: when Holtzmann  _thought_  she knew something. Because really, Holtz knew nothing.  _Erin_  didn’t even know yet, so there was no way Holtzmann could know anything.

Or so she told herself.

When Holtz spoke, Erin felt her face flush, and even worse; she felt her gaze linger on the engineer’s lips just a few seconds too long, her mind ‘helpfully’ supplying her with other ways that tongue could be put to use. Which, again, was something she was trying desperately  _not_  to think about. 

“Can’t you be serious for once?” She hissed, her cheeks still a blushing red when the waitress had taken their respective orders and left. 

Holtzmann leaned back again until her chair was balanced on the back legs, her smile turning into a mock-thoughtful expression as Holtz made a show of thinking about the question. Her head was thrown back, but she was squinting down, keeping her eyes on Erin.

She was, in fact, thinking. Not about her answer to Erin’s question, which should be clear to anyone, especially the one posing said question, but about the questioner herself. Or rather, the reactions which Holtz had so far catalogued but hadn’t had the time to examine closely.

Humans, as a whole, are an odd and amusing to Holtz. She’s quite aware that her mental state is far removed from what would be considered ‘normal’ by the great majority and that this simple fact makes it hard for her to fully comprehend people and their emotions. Hell, there are a lot of her  _own_  emotions she’s quite at odds with sometimes.

Having friends and caring for them, for example. That’s still a new concept. 

Erin, however, was much less of a mystery to Holtz as the brunette would have probably liked.

 _Gay-dar_ , Patty had called it. Holtz has one and it is about as finely honed as the machines back in her workshop. In this moment (ever since first meeting Erin, to be entirely honest, but we’re not nitpicking here) it was going off loud enough to make Holtz’s ears ring, but she still had some questions.

Was Erin already at the breaking point, or could Holtzmann push a little further? Flirt a little more?

_Hmmmm….._

“No.” The single syllable was punctuated by her chair hitting the ground. “I leave being serious to others. Like you.”, she smirked.

Oh, at this point, Erin wanted nothing more than to kiss that smirk off Holtzmann’s face. That self-satisfied much too smug Chesire cat grin frustrated her to no end, and- 

Wait, no,  _smack_. She wanted to  _smack_  that smirk off Holtzmann’s face. Not kiss. Definitely not kiss.

And oh god, she was going to have to have this discussion now, wasn’t she?

The answer came in the form of a constant stream of images where Erin pulled Holtzmann forward by the lapels of her jacket to kiss her senseless, causing Erin’s face to flush and her gaze to linger on the engineer’s lips for slightly longer than was entirely appropriate. And  _yes_ , she  _might_  not be able to deny her feelings for Holtzmann much longer. But she also knew the absolute  _worst_  time to have this mental argument was in front of Holtzmann. So she downed her wine in one gulp as soon as it arrived, wincing a little at the taste as she placed a set of bills on the table. 

“Look, I’ve got to go. Like, now. Because I forgot I have a… A thing. That thing that I have. With… Abby! Yes.”

“So, a thing with Abby?” Holtz drawled in response, fingers absently playing with the ring of condensation on the table that her own glass had left. “The Abby that is out with Patty finding us a new car?”

Erin gulped at that.

 _Busted_.

And not in the good, ghost-related kind. Busted in the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad sense of the word. And judging by the smirk on Holtz’s face, the blonde seemed to know  _exactly_  what was going on in Erin’s head. Which, really, only terrified her more. Because if Holtzmann knew, Holtzmann would probably start teasing her for it. And if Holtzmann started teasing her for it, Erin knew she wasn’t seriously interested. And if she wasn’t seriously interested…

Well, she’d have to not only go through the entire process of questioning her sexuality, but she’d also have to add severe heartbreak to that list. So really, it was best if she just left. Like, right now.

“Yup!” She squeaked out, stumbling out of the booth more clumsily than usual. “She’d said something about… A thing she needed. For car shopping. Or that had to be ready after car shopping. It’s a thing and it’s important is what I’m saying. So, you know, I should probably… Yeah, go.”

“Alright then.” Holtz emptied her glass in one long pull and dropped another bunch of cash onto the table. She stood and shrugged back into her jacket. “I’m gonna go down the block. Tomorrow is trash day. See if I can’t find anything in the dumpster behind the repair shop.”

She sauntered past Erin, towards the door, only to stop there, half in the movement of pushing the door open with her butt. “Oh, and if you  _actually_  want to make it a date, you know where to find me.” She grinned, winked and gave the door a good thrust with her behind before vanishing.

Erin could only gape at her, vaguely aware her face was about as red as her hair by now. Was Holtzmann being serious? Was she just joking around? Did she  _know_ , or were these just incredibly coincidental jokes.

Either way, she left for her own home rather quickly, more than prepared to probably spend the great majority of the night thinking, drinking, and eating a shit ton of ice cream.

The point was; she had no problem with other people not being heterosexual. Holtzmann was about as openly gay as they got, and Erin had never even considered making a problem of that. It was just that she  _herself_  couldn’t not be straight. She was already the ghost girl with very little friends who had gotten fired from Columbia and whose parents still didn’t believe in her. She couldn’t disappoint them further by  _also_  dating a woman. The odds that they wouldn’t take that well were too great.

 _Damn it all to hell_.


	2. It's a date after all

Erin’s night had been less than pleasant. She had spent most of it eating ice cream and watching terrible romcom movies, trying to reinforce her belief that she was, in fact, still straight.

It hadn’t worked out that well.

She’d called Abby, who had pretty much told her that she’d had her suspicions of Erin’s bisexuality ages ago. This, of course, had led to Erin googling ‘bisexuality’, as well as her quickly shutting the page when she realized it was oddly accurate to what she was feeling. Her friend had offered to come over, but Erin had politely declined, claiming this was something she would probably be better off working through alone.

That said, she _had_ nearly ended up texting Holtzmann, writing out and deleting the same message without sending it over and over again.

_[Text to: Holtz]: Were you serious? About the flirting? Because I may or may not be having a bit of a sexuality panic right now and I’m pretty sure it’s your fault._

Unfortunately, midway through her tub of Chunkey Monkey ice cream, she realized that there wasn’t exactly anything she could do to change the conclusion she’d stumbled upon. This, her being bisexual, was A Thing now. And she could deny it all she wanted - she’d know, she’d tried - but it wasn’t going to go away.

Which then left another, equally important problem.

_What the everloving fuck was she going to do about her feelings for Holtzmann?_

That was a problem she  _hadn’t_  been able to solve the night before, and one she was now desperately trying not to think about while staring at the stack of paperwork she’d left on her desk the day before. So far, it wasn’t working out too well for her, which meant she was very easily distracted when the object of her affections entered the room.

 “… I  _could_  try to up the proton count to increase beam strength, but that kind of defeats the purpose of the lower hold-factor in favour of the higher reverse-ionising properties of the guns.”

Holtzmann was pushing her way through the door of the station with her arms loaded with what looked like the insides of a hi-fi system. Patty was reaching over her head to hold the door open while she listened, patiently, to the engineer ramble on.

“And besides, I don’t think a gun that small could handle any more plasma. It’d melt in her hand and that’s just no good. I like those hands where they are.”

And then, Holtzmann made a show of  _realising_  that Erin was sitting there at her desk. 

“Oh, good morning there. Had a good night?”

There was so much innuendo dripping from that harmless sentence that Patty actually stopped and looked between the two. She frowned, while Holtz stalked off towards the stairs, and pointed between the two women. “Okay, is Holtzy being weirder than usual or is it just me.”

“Just you!”, the engineer called back down, before David Bowie’s Let’s Dance blared through the station.

Erin wasn’t sure whether to glare at Holtzmann or to just get flustered at the comment, so she decided to do both, which undoubtedly made for a very hilarious sight. She was definitely, completely, totally blaming Jillian Holtzmann for all of this. Without the blonde engineer, she wouldn’t have had to face all this, or currently be stressing about her having feelings for a co-worker. A  _female_  co-worker, for that matter.

Shooting Holtzmann an absolutely deadly glare despite her flushed face, she nearly snapped a pencil between her fingers. Knowing she did  _not_  want Patty knowing about this, she too called out to the other woman. 

“You know Holtzmann, Patty; she’s probably taken one of those terrible caffeine concoctions of her again.” She said, pointedly ignoring the question Holtzmann had asked her. The blonde was looking especially attractive today, as if she had somehow  _planned_  this, and it was pissing Erin off to no end. 

Knowing she wouldn’t get a response, Erin tried to go back to work, even though she was having a _lot_ of trouble putting the engineer out of her mind. She was constantly plaguing her thoughts, reminding Erin of her very real and very present problem regarding her attraction to the blonde. The fact that she was standing right on the other end of the room with her back to Erin, dancing along to the music and causing Erin’s gaze to linger on Holtz’s ass just a little too often, was not helping matters.

Eventually, the physicist had had enough, and she tossed the pencil away and buried her head in her hands.  _Why couldn’t things just be_ easy _for a change?!_

The clatter of the pencil hitting the floor, rolling and coming to rest against the foot of what would hopefully become a ghost-holding-and-observation-chamber distracted Holtz enough to look up from the soldering she was doing.

“Either that paperwork has gotten a lot more annoying,” Holtzmann began - a very real possibility, despite the insistence of the mayor and his henchwoman that they were on the same side, “or I’m too distracting.”

Also a possibility. Which in this case would be entirely by design and a great imaginary pat on the back for Holtzmann. After all, she had made a point of actually grabbing a coordinated outfit that morning, consisting of oxfords, fitted slacks, a matching waistcoat and a perfectly starched dress shirt. There was even a watchchain (yes, with a watch attached) dangling from button to pocket of the vest.

Erin didn’t even dare look up at Holtzmann, all too aware that doing so would betray her almost immediately. Instead she mumbled something she hoped could not be understood by Holtzmann from across the room, complaining quietly about ‘damn cockiness’ and ‘her fault’ and ‘want to kiss that smirk off her face’.

Holtzmann just grinned, before walking over to the box of scavenged scrapyard tools she’d gathered this morning.

“You know…” She began, taking out a metal object and dangling it from her fingers with a grin. “I have a great idea for these handcuffs.”

“Whatever it is… No.” Erin took a bit too long in responding, and when she did, her face was just a bit too red, the redhead quickly getting up and snatching the metal item away from Holtzmann.

“Why not? It’s much better than tying Kevin’s shoelaces together.” Holtzmann grinned, as Erin sat back down behind her desk. Oh, she knew  _exactly_  what she’d said, how she’d said it and what kind of message had arrived with Erin. And she was just going to let that image sit there, in that brilliant head and do it’s job.

“Because…”

But if Erin was honest, she couldn’t really think of a good counter-argument to that, at least not one that wouldn’t completely betray her true desires. 

“Just no, Holtzmann.” She said, pretty sure she sounded about as unconvincing as possible.

“I  _could_  also just make a comment about my sturdy bedframe.”, The engineer smiled sweetly, still eyeing the object in question, firmly out of quick reach of her hands. She had to give Erin one thing, she was good at anticipating Holtz’s antics by now. Still, it seemed the physicist was _very_ distracted at this point, and Holtzmann took the opportunity to move closer to the redhead, knowing she probably wouldn’t notice until it was much too late.

Erin let out something that could best be described as a combination between a groan and a whimper, clearly tempted but not wanting to be the first of the two to break. Yes, Holtzmann was being incredibly suggestive, but Holtzmann was always suggestive, and she still wasn’t entirely sure how serious the engineer was. 

“Holtzmann…” Her tone was almost warning, but she was purposely avoiding eye contact with the blonde.

 “You’re right, it’s rude to cuff people to the bed before the first date. I told that to the officer that one time. He wasn’t impressed.” Holtzman had scooted close enough for the bottom of her coat to brush Erin’s thighs

“I think rudeness is the least of your problems with that situation.” Erin choked out, her face somehow growing even redder when she realized how close Holtzmann was. “Knowing you you’d probably just leave me there… right?” She laughed nervously, hoping to break the tension and put the idea out of Holtzmann’s head (and maybe, just maybe, get a feel for how serious Holtzmann was. Just maybe.)

“That would defeat the whole purpose.”, her voice had dropped to that low, honeyed tone that had been Erin’s introduction to Jillian Holtzmann way back in Abby’s chaotic little laboratory. “Cuffing people is only half the  _fun_.”

And there it was again,  _that_  tone dripping from her words. Erin felt that tone resonate throughout her entire body, an uncomfortable and totally inappropriate heat pooling between her legs. She whimpered ever so slightly, the prospect seeming  _incredibly_  tempting, but also knowing Holtzmann would  _never_  let her live it down if she admitted to that.

Unfortunately for Erin, those thoughts had distracted her from the actual problem at hand. There was a  _ratchet-click_  as the handcuff closed around Erin’s wrist, Holtzmann having manoeuvred herself close enough to snatch them up.

(Of course, she’d kept her finger in the steel ring and if she wanted, Erin could easily slip her hand out of it. But judging by her reaction, Holtzmann doubted she would)

Feeling the cold metal around her wrist, Erin’s first thought was to curse herself for letting Holtzmann get close enough to get her hands on them.

(Actually, no, that wasn’t her  _first_  thought. Maybe more like her fourth or fifth thought, but the other thoughts really should not be repeated in polite company. Or any company, for that matter).

Looking up at the engineer, cheeks still flushed and pupils definitely dilated, she tried to get a read on the blonde. But Holtzmann wore confidence and self-satisfaction well and almost permanently, leaving Erin completely in the dark as to her intentions.

Then again… Holtzmann was smart. She undoubtedly had enough data to make Erin’s life a living hell over this already. Her asking how serious the blonde was wasn’t going to change anything.

“So… You said something about the sturdiness of your headboard?” She asked, before swallowing thickly.

“I also said something about a first date.”, Holtz smirked. The engineer enjoyed playing games. Flirting was fun and there was something interesting to watch people’s reactions to her.

But Erin was … Erin. From the first time Abby had flown into a rant about her former-and-now-again-friend Holtzmann had been interested. Nothing got to her like an intelligent woman.

And Erin had intelligence in spades.

Besides, Holtz genuinely liked her. With a stomach-churning, finger-tingling intensity. Holtz liked Abby and Patty, too, but not in the dating, into-bed-dragging way she liked Erin. Which was new to Holtz.

Nothing that cramped her enthusiasm or swagger, however. 

Erin nodded slowly in response, getting up from her seat to take a small step closer to Holtzmann. “You want to date me, then?” She asked, more than a little hopeful, her feelings for Holtz that ran deeper than her current desire not having entirely left the scene.

Biting her lip, she met the blonde’s gaze with intensity. “What if I said last night was a first date?”

Holtz’s smile turned from flirtatious teasing to genuine elation. Absently, her brain catalogued the flip of her stomach, the flutter in her chest and the tingling in her fingers as a reaction to a sudden increase in dopamine, adrenaline and serotonin in her brain, brought on by the close proximity of the woman she really, really liked. A lot.

“Then I wouldn’t need to worry about it being rude to cuff you to my really very sturdy bedframe.”, she purred. “ _If.”_

Erin swallowed thickly, not once breaking the blonde’s gaze as her mind was racing a mile a minute.

Holtzmann liked her. Holtzmann wanted to date her. Holtzmann was, actually, oddly serious about the handcuff thing. Every single bit of information both excited and terrified Erin at the same time, and part of her wanted a little more time to properly process all of this. But her desire-clouded mind had other ideas. 

“Then I take back what I said last night. I was wrong. It was a date.” Her voice was trembling slightly as she spoke, not usually one to give in this quickly, but hell if Holtzmann didn’t know exactly which buttons to push.

Holtz stopped the joyful whoop that tried to bubble up in her throat and instead, she just gave a little laugh. They were very close. The front of Holtz’s lab coat she had thrown on over her fine suit was brushing against Erin’s front and Holtzmann was still holding onto the open, unattached side of the handcuff. Her finger was still hooked into the closed ring around Erin’s wrist and had started, out of it’s own volition, to caress the thin skin over the pulse point there.

An oddly gentle gesture for the normally energetic and bubbly engineer.

There were a lot of things she could say, but either they felt entirely wrong or somewhere on the way between her cluttered brain and her mouth they scrambled and her tongue wouldn’t produce the right sounds.

What she finally ended up saying was: “Damn, I could really go for a kiss right now.”

“Then what’s stopping you?” Erin arched a brow, taking another step forward, almost daring Holtzmann to do something, to make a move. Her heart was racing in her chest, something she was sure Holtzmann could feel, but her eyes remained locked with the engineer’s. Nervous as she was, she knew exactly what she wanted. “You have me. Literally.” She added, wriggling the fingers of her cuffed hand a little bit.

“Cheeky.”, Holtz mumbled and reached up to slide her free, for once ungloved palm along Erin’s cheek. She shivered at the tickle of hair against the back of her sensitive hand and revelled in the softness under her fingers. Her thumb followed the path of Erin’s cheekbone in a small caress before she tilted Erin’s head, leaning in for an almost chaste kiss. 

Just a gentle touch of lips, testing limits and angles. 

Erin almost immediately tries to deepen the kiss, her free hand coming up to tangle in the blonde’s hair as she pulls the other woman closer. Holtzmann had been riling her up for days, if not weeks by now, and Erin was very much  _not_  in the mood for hesitant, careful, or controlled.

Was she in love with Holtzmann? Absolutely. Did she want to take her sweet time in exploring the other woman’s body, take her on dates, and do other sweet couple-y romance things? Of course. But that would have to wait until later. And really, the engineer should have expected this. As if it hadn’t been her goal from day 1 to get Erin to lose her composure and be a trembling, wanting mess under Holtzmann’s skillful touch.

Holtz smiled into the kiss and moved even closer into Erin’s space, crowding her back against the desk and pinning her in place with one knee between Erin’s legs. She tilted her head to deepen the kiss, sliding her hand further around Erin’s neck to pull her closer.

Opening her lips, Holtz flicked the tip of her tongue against Erin’s lips teasingly, She was still trying to figure out Erin, like pushing the boundaries on an experiment. And somewhere along the line, between Erin kissing her back fiercely and a gentle tug to her hair, any semblance of her scientific mind went out the window and Holtz all but hoisted Erin up on the desk, wiggling between her legs to stand close.

Erin’s mouth opened immediately, their kissing turning from passionate to plain lustful. She couldn’t help but suppress a small moan as she felt Holtzmann’s knee slide between her legs, her cuffed hand moving to wrap around the blonde’s waist as she pulled her closer, her kisses turning more hungry by the second. She was vaguely aware of the engineer probably feeling incredibly smug right about now, but it barely registered in her desire-clouded mind. All that seemed to matter was Holtzmann and having Holtzmann as close to her as possible, consequences be damned. 

Something fell over with a ‘clang’ followed by the clatter of smaller things hitting the floor and rolling away and Holtz didn’t care. She slid a hand under Erin’s thigh and gripped it tightly, making more room for herself, even if they were already chest to chest. 

She tilted her head further, sliding her tongue against Erin’s. The kiss deepened without any thought for decency or their surroundings, until a realization came crashing in hot and hard. 

“Soldering iron!”, Holtz gasped into the  kiss, her chest heaving, cheeks flushed and her hair a mess. “I left it on!”

Erin groaned audibly when Holtzmann pulled away, her hands still blindly reaching for the blonde before the words had properly registered. When they did, her eyes shot open, immediately pushing Holtzmann towards her own working corner. 

“You what?! Turn it off, you idiot!” She shrieked, stumbling off the desk as she went in search of one of the many fire extinguishers she kept around the office.

“I wasn’t expecting a make-out, to be fair!” Holtzmann countered, before stumbling of and nearly making a dive for her workbench. The solder had completely dripped off the hot tip, pooling in small puddle on the luckily sturdy surface below. With a yank, she pulled the plug from the socket.

“As if that wasn’t your goal from the get-go.” Erin fumed after putting the fire extinguisher away, crossing her arms as she glared at Holtzmann. The physicist was currently looking less than amused and more than a little dishevelled. The engineer had undoubtedly been taunting her for months now (something she had discovered during her ice cream binge yesterday), and now she was surprised her hard work had paid off?

Erin didn’t quite buy that.

For a second, Holtzmann just stood there, one hand braced on the tabletop and took a breath, before turning back to Erin. 

“Sooo…”, she drawled, letting her eyes roam from Erin’s dishevelled hair to her flushed cheeks and down her rumpled attire. “Did I just screw up my chances for a repeat?”

Despite the what might be considered worrying words, Holtz was again carrying her teasing smile, and Erin found that it was still incredibly difficult to stay mad at Holtzmann for too long. Especially when she was looking at Erin with that smile, or when she was looking nearly as dishevelled as Erin.

“What do you think?”

Crossing the room towards Holtzmann, Erin grabbed the lapels of the blonde’s coat and pulled her in for another kiss, shorter this time, before pulling away with a glint in her eyes. “I believe you said something about a sturdy bedframe?”

Holtzmann smirked in response, her hand quickly finding the open end of the handcuff again.

“So long as you promise me breakfast after.” She teased back, causing Erin to steal another quick kiss from her lips.

“Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And there you have it! I've got a few more one-shots in the works for those of you who still aren't sick of these RP-threads-turned-fanfic, and you can follow updates on my writing and general life on twitter (forxgood). I'm always a slut for human interaction.
> 
> As per usual, my tumblr is scientificxmethod, if you ever want to check out the actual RP threads these things are adapted from.


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